To a Long-Loved LoveWe, who have seen the new moon grow old together,
Who have seen winter rime the fields and stones
As though it would claim earth and water forever,
We who have known the touch of flesh and the shape of bones
Know the old moon stretching its shadows across a whitened field
More beautiful than spring with all its spate of blooms;
What passion knowledge of tried flesh still yields,
What joy and comfort these familiar rooms.

In the moonless, lampless dark now of this bed
My body knows each line and curve of yours;
My fingers know the shape of limb and head:
As pure as mathematics ecstasy endures.
Blinded by night and love we share our passion,
Certain of burning flesh, of living bone:
So feels the sculptor in the moment of creation
Moving his hands across the uncut stone.
I know why a star gives light
Shining quietly in the night;
Arithmetic helps me unravel
The hours and years this light must travel

To penetrate our atmosphere.
I can count the craters on the moon
With telescopes to make them clear.
With delicate instruments I can measure
The secrets of barometric pressure.

And therefore I find it inexpressibly queer
That with my own soul I am out of tune,
And that I have not stumbled on the art
Of forecasting the weather of the heart.

Sonnet 1
Your place is empty, empty in the night
When I reach out with hand or foot to touch
Your living flesh, the warmth that offers such
An affirmation, oh, it is not right
The bed is empty, made for two, not one.
The reflex does not die, to touch, to reach,
To find. I think it will be never done,
And I am glad of that. It seems that each
Of us find our own answers in this grief.
I know you have been here. You have been here.
The empty place is full of deep relief
Because it still is yours and still is dear.
But oh! That my dear love were in my bed
And my life flesh to your live flesh still wed.

The Birth of LoveTo learn to loveis to be stripped of all loveuntil you are wholly without lovebecauseuntil you have gonenaked and afraidinto this cold dark placewhere all love is taken from youyou will no knowthat you are wholly within love.

Sonnet 2
How long your closet held a whiff of you,
Long after hangers hung austere and bare.
I would walk in and suddenly the true
Sharp sweet sweat scent controlled the air
And life was in that small still living breath.
Where are you? since so much of you is here,
Your unique odour quite ignoring death.
My hands reach out to touch, to hold what's dear
And vital in my longing empty arms.
But other clothes fill up the space, your space,
And scent on scent send out strange false alarms.
Not of your odour there is not a trace.
But something unexpected still breaks through
The goneness to the presentness of you.

Sonnet 3
This, too, is passion, the so gentle touch
Of fingertip to wrist, to shoulder, face.
More would cause pain, and oh l would not such
Anguish awake, I sit here in my place
Beside this strange white bed, with IV poles
Holding snaked lines that feed into your arms.
A limbo, this, a waiting room for souls
Ready to leave the flesh with all its charms--
And I am still in thrall to human love,
To tough, to whisper, bring from you a smile.
Passion remains. What am I thinking of?
How can I let it go? Hold on a while.
But oh, my love, must I now love you so
That my love's passion has to let you go?

Sonnet 4
The prince is turned to dragon, beast, or toad,
And I in deep enchanted sleep seem dead.
Who has the key, the door, the hidden road?
Whose kiss will rouse the princess from the bed,
Free the young prince from the unnatural spell
That keeps his body in its bitter thrall?
Both need the kiss, the lad, the lass as well,
So eyes may open, shrunken limbs grow tall.
You kissed me, love, and woke me from my sleep.
My lips met yours, and thus I kissed you, too.
Spells were undone, and we with joy did weep.
It was the kiss that made the story true.
Look! Watch the evil spell break into shards,
The story is the light beyond the words.

Sonnet 5
Child and old woman, here again I sit,
Adolescent, mother, yet I'm still
Presiding at the table, candles lit,
Widow and wife I am. The plates I fill
With food set out at places freshly laid
Are honoring with love each coming guest.
How many are the meals that I have made
Night after night, nor can find one the best?
I'll keep the laughter and the sad shed tears,
Would give none up; one lost would make me less.
Add all in all, the ecstasies, the fears.
Together they redeem, restore, redress.
I light the candles, bless the food, and you
Who grace the table make the myth come true.

Sonnet 6
In the hotel room the phone is there.
Thoughtless, I walk towards it, start to dial.
Pause, fingers now uncertain. Where oh where
Is your new number? Will it in a while
Be given to me? And will I ever call,
"Darling, I'm safely here. Love, it is I"?
There is no number now, not one at all
To reach beyond your death. I cannot cry
My love across the line to where you are.
I do not know! My love, I do not know
If you're still near or have gone very far.
I cannot use the phone. The answer's. No.
Where did death take you that the phone
Is useless and I hear my voice alone?
Sonnet 11
God! The world is so big, our tiny lives so small,
How can we believe that our little love matters?

Sonnet 7
"It is not good for man to be alone," said God.
So God made two to be forever one,
And failed. Formed from dust and lowly sod
The two could not leave well enough alone.
They turned from God and ate forbidden fruit,
So God exiled them from their birthright home.
They knew each other, then. The point is moot.
Lost, hungry, they were forced to roam
The world of spirit more than that of earth.
They knew each other, then, the pain of love
That made two one, and was the cause of birth.
How strangely wise of God to make them move.
Only by breaking and mending can we be
The unique one, by God's wild love set free.

Sonnet 8
Did we know fear when we were born?
Moving from small safety (safety's always
Small), from our known comforts roughly torn
Into the blinding light of noisy hallways.
Was it like death? our old world left behind,
Air knifing unused lungs, light rough
Against our womb-protected eyes, still blind.
In that warm wet place was it not enough?
Yet in this new life, we've been satisfied.
So must you leave me now, from life released?
Your body's cold. I know that it has died.
Is death another birth? Is death deceased?
All that I know of you goes back to earth.
I do not know if this is death or birth.

Sonnet 9
Resurrection's not resuscitation.
What, in heaven's name, do we expect?
I'm satisfied with no one's explanation
Which seem to me more fancy than correct.
I know that hour beloved body's gone
And heaven's not pie in some ethereal sky.
It's you I want, familiar flesh and bone.
But my flesh, too, is mortal. I will die.
So what, then, do I hope from resurrection?
I hope beyond my wildest hope unseen
That there will still be some aware connection
'Twixt what we will be and 'twixt what we've been,
And you and I and all we love will meet
When Love has won, and we're at last complete.

Sonnet 10
Don't tell me that his pain is over now.
Don't tell me cancer is a good God's will.
Don't talk about the Great Prime Mover, how
He knows all things, controls the future still.
Give me God who makes his creatures free
To play the story to a glorious finish,
Whose power is in relinquishing power, so we
May grow in love. Oh. let his power diminish
As he comes in to us with all our pain,
Who shows magnificence upon a cross,
Who o'er a groaning universe does reign
Until love triumphs over every loss.
Only this God is strong enough to say
"I love you," and so throw all power away.

Sonnet 11
God! The world is so big, our tiny lives so small,
How can we believe that our little love matters?
Death has torn all I care for to terrible tatters.
Did our love matter? Oh, God, does it matter at all?
Countless galaxies swirl in the alien spaces,
Great furnaces of raging nuclear power
Against whose blasts the comets swiftly shower
Reflecting heaven on our human faces.
Life and death are hardly held apart
And yet this one death's impact is so great
The breathing of the universe must wait
Upon the ceasing of this single heart.
Dear love, if what I feel now is not true,
God never was, not God, not I, not you.

Sonnet 12
I suppose they could have called us counter-culture.
You, an actor on the stage, and I
Writing novels, looking towards a future
Where we'd take off and care free, fly.
Care free? No, life's richer far than that,
But work we did, and children had, and grew
Through joy and pain, not even knowing what
Was best or worst. Tears, not a few,
Balanced our lives, you on the stage,
Movies, TV, while I worked with my pen,
Adding pages to my books, each page
Both sweat and joy. We loved. We loved. And then--
You're gone. And though ye leave me not bereft
Nothing has been the same since you have left.

Sonnet 13
O God! You ask the deepest darkest things.
You blind with light more frightening than dark.
You tell me: Fly! And then you give no wings.
Your sharp sword pierces as it hits the mark.
You gave me love as human as the earth
And earth to earth you've gone as all must go.
So we are torn apart twixt tears and mirth
And where your you has gone I do not know.
Oh, God! your loneliness came into flesh.
You taught us love as you let all love go,
And with your life our lives are deep enmeshed.
We know you as we know we do not know.
Oh, God! you ask us all to be like you,
And what you love will truly be made new.

Sonnet 14
You hurt me, so I turned away and wept.
Did I hurt you, and were you slapping back?
It hurt. But we curled up like spoons and slept
And of our salty tears we kept no track.
Why do we lose each other? Where are you?
I've forgotten who you are, you see,
And in your anger have you lost me, too?
Can we be found again? Do you know me?
Now in each other we'll find someone new
And fall in love again. We can't return
To who we were. I'm me, my dear, you're you.
From who we were to who we are we'll learn
And oh, my dark, our love is more by far
Because our hurts have made us who we are.

Annunciation
To the impossible: Yes!
Enter and penetrate
O Spirit. Come and bless
This hour: the star is late.
Only the absurdity of love
Can break the bonds of hate.

After Annunciation
This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There'd have been no room for the child.

First Coming
He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

“My Sins, I Fear, Dear Lord, Lack Glamour”
My sins, I fear, dear Lord, lack glamour.
I'll never make a thief.
In the market place's lustful clamour
I do not seek relief.

Euphoria in Needle Park
Has never been temptation.
I go to bed when it is dark.
My acts of contemplation

Are apt to be on household chores
And bringing up the baby.
I'm of the company of bores
Who're worth salvation-maybe.

The church's doors are open wide
As they should always be
To anyone who'll go inside--
Except for those like me.

Adultery would help me in,
Or any strange perversion.
Masses of money would begin
To put the greedy spurs on

The exquisite unfriendly church
Where mass media are able
To supercede the Mass, and perch
Upon the Holy Table.

If I could couch my current quest
In language fine and formal,
I'd ask that simple souls be blest:
Salvation for the normal.

"How Very Odd It Seems, Dear Lord"
How very odd it seems, dear Lord,
That when I go to seek your Word
In varied towns at home, abroad,
I'm in the company of the absurd.

The others who come, as I do,
Starving for need of sacrament,
Who sit beside me in the pew,
Are both in mind and body bent.

I kneel beside the old, unfit,
The young, the lonely stumbling few,
And I myself, with little wit,
Hunger and thirst, my God, for you.

I share communion with the halt,
The lame, the blind, oppressed, depressed.
We have, it seems, a common fault
In coming to you to be blessed.

And my fit friends, intelligent,
Heap on my shoulders a strange guilt.
Are only fools and sinners meant
To come unto you to be filled?

Among the witless and absurd
I flee to find you and to share
With eyes and ears and lips your Word.
I pray, my God. God, hear my prayer.

From city streets and lanes we come.
I slip unto you like a thief
To be with you, at peace, at home,
Lord, I believe. Oh, help my unbelief.

Love Letter
I hate you, God.
Love, Madeleine.

I write my message on water
and at bedtime I tiptoe upstairs
and let it flow under your door

When I am angry with you
I know that you are there
even if you do not answer my knock
even when your butler opens the door an inch
and flaps his thousand wings in annoyance
at such untoward interruption
and says that the master is not at home.

I love you, Madeleine.
hate, God.

(This is how I treat my friends, he said to one great saint.
No wonder you have so few of them, Lord, she replied.)

I cannot turn the other cheek
It takes all the strength I have
To keep my fist from hitting back
the soldiers shot the baby
the little boys trample the old woman
the gutters are filled with groans
while pleasure seekers knock each other down
in order to get their tickets stamped first.

I'm turning in my ticket
and my letter of introduction.
You're supposed to do the knocking. Why do you burst my heart?

How can I write you
to tell you that I'm angry
when I've been given the wrong address
and I don't even know your real name?

I take hammer and nails
and tack my message on two crossed pieces of wood:

Dear God
is it too much to ask you
to bother to be?
Just show your hindquarters
and let me hear you roar.

Love,
Madeleine

God's Beast
Least important of all animals, I am a beast
of burden. I can carry heavy loads,
and I am more patient than a camel,
gentler of nature, though occasionally stubborn.
I am not considered intelligent,
and my name is used as an insult.

But when I see an angel in my path
I recognize a messenger of God
"Stop!" the angel said to me, and I stopped,
obeying God rather than my master Balaam
who hit me and cursed me and did not see
the angel's brilliance barring our way.

Later I took the path to Bethlehem
bearing God's bearer on my weary back,
and stood beside her in the stable, trying to share
her pain and loneliness, and then the joy.

I carried on my back the Lord himself,
riding, triumphant, through Jerusalem,
But the blessings turned to curses,
Hosanna into Crucify him! Crucify him!
Least important of all animals, beast of burden,
my heaviest burden is to turn the curse into a blessing,
to see the angel in my path,
to bear forever the blessing of my Lord.

The Donkey

I recognize angels.
Donkeys can see what mortals fail to recognize.
He beat me, did Balaam,
beat me to move on,
for he was blind and did not see
the angel barring our path.
I saw.
Angels mean business.
I stopped.

Go, the angel said. Go quickly.
You are bearing holiness.
I moved gently, not to jolt the woman
who carried within her
all light and life and love
waiting to be born.
Go, the angel said. It is time.

Again I saw angels.
Their wings were held high over my burden,
the weary man if light sitting on my back,
staring at the shadow of a cross.
We were covered in darkness.
People tossed palm branches before us.
"Go," the angels said. "Go."
They were not like the other angels.

Their wings drooped, though they tried
to hold them high. "Go," the angels said,
"into the darkness."
"Go," the angels said,
"through the darkness into the light."
And we did go.

Three Songs Of Mary
1. 0 Simplicitas

An angel came to me
and I was unprepared
to be what God was using.
Mother I was to be.
A moment I despaired,
thought briefly of refusing.
The angel knew I heard.
According to God's Word
I bowed to this strange choosing.

A palace should have been
the birthplace of a king
(I had no way of knowing).
We went to Bethlehem;
it was so strange a thing.
The wind was cold, and blowing,
my cloak was old, and thin.
They turned us from the inn;
the town was overflowing.

God's Word, a child so small
who still must learn to speak
lay in humiliation.
Joseph stood, strong and tall.
The beasts were warm and meek
and moved with hesitation.
The Child born in a stall?
I understood it: all
Kings come in adoration.

Perhaps it was absurd;
a stable set apart,
the sleepy cattle lowing;
and the incarnate Word
resting against my heart.
My joy was overflowing.
The shepherds came, adored
the folly of the Lord,
wiser than all men's knowing.

2. 0 Oriens

O come, 0 come Emmanuel
within this fragile vessel here to dwell.
O Child conceived by heaven's power
give me thy strength: it is the hour.

O come, thou Wisdom from on high;
like any babe at life you cry;
for me, like any mother, birth
was hard, 0 light of earth.

O come, 0 come, thou Lord of might,
whose birth came hastily at night,
born in a stable, in blood and pain
is this the king who comes to reign?

O come, thou Rod of Jesse's stem,
the stars will be thy diadem.
How can the infinite finite be?
Why choose, child, to be born of me?

O come, thou key of David, come,
open the door to my heart-home.
I cannot love thee as a king--
so fragile and so small a thing.

O come, thou Day-spring from on high:
I saw the signs that marked the sky.
I heard the beat of angels' wings
I saw the shepherds and the kings.

O come, Desire of nations, be
simply a human child to me.
Let me not weep that you are born.
The night is gone. Now gleams the morn.

Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel,
God's Son, God's Self, with us to dwell.

3. O Sapientia

It was from Joseph first I learned
of love. Like me he was dismayed.
How easily he could have turned
me from his house; but, unafraid,
he put me not away from him
(O God-sent angel, pray for him).
Thus through his love was Love obeyed.

The Child's first cry came like a bell:
God's Word aloud, God's Word in deed.
The angel spoke: so it befell,
and Joseph with me in my need.
O Child whose father came from heaven,
to you another gift was given,
your earthly father chosen well.

With Joseph I was always warmed
and cherished. Even in the stable
I knew that I would not be harmed.
And, though above the angels swarmed,
man's love it was that made me able
to bear God's love, wild, formidable,
to bear God's will, through me performed.

Mary: After The Baptism
Yes, of course. On many days I doubted.
My faith grew out of doubt. The child was good
but other babies have been good. He shouted
when he was hungry, like any child, for food.
One simply does not think of the Messiah
cutting teeth, eating, and eliminating.
He springs, full-grown, in the great Isaiah--
God, servant, king. And I was waiting,
remembering in my heart the very things
that caused my doubt: the angel's first appearing
to me and then to Joseph; shepherds, kings,
the flight to Egypt. Remembering was fearing;
doubt helped. I had to face it all as true
the day John baptized him. Then he knew.

Young Mary
I know not all of that which I contain.
I'm small; I'm young; I fear the pain.
All is surprise: I am to be a mother.
That Holy Thing within me and no other
is Heaven's King whose lovely Love will reign.
My pain, his gaining my eternal gain
my fragile body holds Creation's Light;
its smallness shelters God's unbounded might.
The angel came and gave, did not explain.
I know not all of that which I contain.

Three Days
Friday:
When you agree to be the mother of God
you make no conditions, no stipulations.
You flinch before neither cruel thorn nor rod.
You accept the tears; you endure the tribulations.

But, my God, I didn't know it would be like this.
I didn't ask for a child so different from others.
I wanted only the ordinary bliss,
to be the most mundane of mothers.

Saturday:
When I first saw the mystery of the Word
made flesh I never thought that in his side
I'd see the callous wound of Roman sword
piercing my heart on the hill where he died.

How can the Word be silenced? Where has it gone?
Where are the angel voices that sang at his birth?
My frail heart falters. I need the light of the Son.
What is this darkness over the face of the earth?

Sunday:
Dear God, He has come, the Word has come again.
There is no terror left in silence, in clouds, in gloom.
He has conquered the hate; he has overcome the pain.
Where, days ago, was death lies only an empty tomb.

The secret should have come to me with his birth,
when glory shone through darkness, peace through strife.
For every birth follows a kind of death, and only after pain comes life.

The Tenth Hour
Who is to comfort whom
in this time beyond comfort
this end of our time?
Can I, who already have one mother,
alive, oh, very alive, and not over-willing to share,
be another man's mother's son?
Perhaps if she could hold me, as she so small a time ago held him,
knowing him dead with only a fragment of her knowing,
the rest of herself, her arms, heart, lips,
not understanding death--
but we will not touch Not that way.

Can she, who has lost in such a manner her son,
be mother once again, past child-bearing, caring,
to a man full grown?
I loved her son, ran from him, returned only for the end,
most miserable--I, not he--

"Son."
My lips move. "Mother." though no sound comes.
She leaves the hill, the three crosses.
I follow. To her empty house.
She does not weep or wail as I had feared.
She does the little, homely things, prepares a meal, then
O God
washes my feet.
"An angel came," she said,
"to tell me of his birth. And I obeyed.
No angel's come to tell me of his death."

This, I thought, was not an argument.
I held back tears, since she held hers, though foolishly.
We ate-somehow-she always listening.
I said, at last, "You do not mourn."
She looked down at me gravely.
"No, my son. My second given son.
I obeyed then. Shall I do less today?"